The Roman was sweeping up the ancient ravine.

Jerusalem had fallen.
The gradual crescendo now attained deafening proportions; the hanging lamp increased its swing; the silver coins began to strike together with keen and exquisitely fine music.

Juventius the Swan, with his dim eyes filled with horror, was looking at them.

The peculiar desperate indifference of the wholly hopeless seized him.

His long white hands began to move with the motion of the lamp; the music of the meeting coins became regular; he caught the note, and mounting, with a bound, the rostrum that had been his Olympus all his life, began to sing.